Face/Off (1997) review

Face/Off (1997)

Directed by: John Woo

Produced by: David Permut, Barrie M. Osborne, Terence Chang, Christopher Godsick

Screenplay by: Mike Werb, Michael Colleary

Starring: John Travolta, Nicolas Cage, Joan Allen, Gina Gershon, Alessandro Nivola, Colm Feore

How many of you went to go see “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” this past spring? If you’re a Nicolas Cage fan, you’ll probably think it has more than enough homages and oddball antics to make it one of the most enjoyable “meta” films in recent years. With that said, let’s take a look back at maybe my personal favorite Cage movie, “Face/Off,” in honor of its 25th anniversary. Directed by John Woo, a pioneer of Hong Kong cinema, Cage is paired with John Travolta in one of the most bizarre concepts for any action film. Travolta plays FBI Special Agent Sean Archer, who takes on the identity of freelance terrorist Castor Troy (Cage) for an undercover assignment, but everything goes wrong when Troy takes Archer’s place. Featuring a vast array of practical, energized set pieces, and performances that are over-the-top in all the right ways, this movie takes full advantage of its ideas.

Six years earlier, Troy’s assassination attempt of Archer resulted in Archer’s young son Michael (Myles Jeffrey) being shot dead; ever since then, Archer has had an obsessive vendetta to bring Troy down. They finally ambush him and his brother Pollux (Alessandro Nivola) on an airstrip, sending Troy into a coma; however, they’ve hidden a bomb somewhere in Los Angeles. So Archer, despite promising his wife Eve (Joan Allen) and teenage daughter Jamie (Dominique Swain) that he was done, agrees to undergo an experimental face transplant procedure from Dr. Malcolm Walsh (Colm Feore) to take on Troy’s physical appearance, and enter a high-security prison to coax the bomb’s location out of Pollux. He’s successful, but Troy awakens from his coma, forces Walsh to transplant Archer’s face onto him, and then kills the only people who know about the mission. So Archer is left in prison, while Troy attempts to take over his life, disarming the bomb and getting close to Eve and Jamie; Archer escapes, and must now turn the tide by allying with Troy’s crew and regaining control before losing anyone else.

Now what do I mean when I say the performances are over-the-top in the right ways? Well, Travolta and Cage are already known for acting really animated; how many memes have been inspired by their mannerisms? Then consider the fact that Cage’s Troy is an unpredictable sociopath prone to outbursts; when the switch happens, this is where the ingenuity comes in, because it’s Cage playing Archer playing Troy, so it’s an exaggerated version of an already bombastic character. His eyes bug out, his voice is sneering, he screams a lot of nonsense, and we love every minute of it. But it’s not just pure zaniness; they do make time for actual depth. I like the little touches such as the two of them being repulsed by their new appearances, with Archer threatening to break down the longer he has to keep this up, and the fact that Troy acts as kind of a better husband and father to Eve and Jamie than Archer is pretty funny; sure, it’s for manipulative purposes, but he’s more attentive to Eve and even teaches Jamie self-defense. Apparently, the writers had Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger in mind for the roles, which I don’t think would’ve worked the same way, but still would’ve been fun considering their cinematic rivalry at the time.

The action scenes are some of the best of the 1990s; in the years after “Jurassic Park,” a lot of movies exploited CGI like nobody’s business. But here we have an outstanding use of practical effects, stunt work and gunplay, which results in a variety of explosive scenes, such as the chase on the airport runway—apparently, they destroyed a real plane, filmed from 13 different angles—the shootout with Troy’s crew, and the climactic speedboat fight. Reportedly, this was the first time Woo was given full creative control in a Hollywood production, and just the way he fills up the screen with stylized carnage and destruction through the editing and cinematography is so satisfying as a viewer. I love how the movie has no shame in going straight for cheese; Woo’s trademark white doves make an appearance, we get moments of characters in sunglasses with heavy coats fluttering in the wind, and there’s an entire killing spree scene set to “Over the Rainbow,” as well as a use of classical music by Mozart, Chopin and Handel. How can you not love such overblown tropes choreographed to this magnitude?

With that said, some of the decisions are a little too self-indulgent; there’s a fair bit of slow motion that’s just tacked on unnecessarily, and maybe too much “mirror symbolism” between Archer and Troy. I also feel like the prison scenes go on too long, and the way Archer escapes is kind of absurdly easy; this isn’t really a movie concerned with logical details, moreso with character conflict and the bigger picture. But even that gets a little wonky because these people come to kind of insane resolutions pretty quickly, and Troy’s motivations are just all over the place as far as what his and Archer’s dynamic actually is. Thankfully, the actors portray these situations believably, particularly Joan Allen as Eve; I kind of like to think there’s a part of her that feels there’s something wrong, but is kind of hoping it’s just Archer being a better husband. Alessandro Nivola makes a memorable film debut as the slippery Pollux, and I didn’t even mention Gina Gershon as Troy’s ex-girlfriend Sasha; fresh off “Bound,” she plays her with just the right amount of nuance, a loving mother stuck in unsavory ways.

Despite being a movie with a lot of character clichés, there’s enough grandeur in the visuals and interactions that it doesn’t lessen the replay value. It’s a bizarre, audacious action film, and the tone properly submerses itself in that mindset, featuring actors who clearly won’t hesitate to go all out, and scenes that just dial the “wow” factor up to 11; it earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Sound Editing, but had the misfortune of coming out the same year as “Titanic,” which cleaned up pretty much the entire technical category. This was kind of the peak-Cage era; he won his first and only Oscar for “Leaving Las Vegas,” and followed that up with “The Rock,” “Con Air” and “Face/Off,” the latter two coming out the same month. He’s proved over the years that he can take the strangest circumstances, and deliver something with true commitment while also remaining completely unpredictable. I know he’s had deeper portrayals, but if you want to see Cage’s entire acting repertoire on full display, this is more than worth checking out.

My rating: 9/10